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DUBLIN, Ireland - Denis Kang has a tattoo of the Korean god of war on his left shoulder. His opponent in his Ultimate Fighting Championship debut MMA fight Saturday, Alan Belcher, has a tattoo of Johnny Cash. There could be no more clear example of the differences between the two than the art they adorn their bodies with.

Kang, a resident of North Vancouver when he's not training in Montreal, was born in the French territory of St-Pierre-Miquelon, off Newfoundland. His Korean and French parents moved the family to the Canary Islands when he was nine, then to B.C. when he was 11. His fight career has taken him from Kelowna to Tokyo, Montreal to Moscow, Seoul to St Petersburg, and on Saturday Dublin, Ireland will be added to the list.

"I'm everything - French, Canadian, Korean," he says between sparring partners as he prepares for UFC 93. "I'm proud of all of the cultures in my background. I think everywhere I've been and everywhere I've come from has brought me to where I am today."

Belcher, meanwhile, is the quintessential statesider. He was born in Jonesboro, Arkansas, lives down the interstate in Biloxi, Mississippi, and has only fought three times outside U.S. His first no-holds-barred fight was at the age of 14, when he beat a guy in his 20's in an unregulated fight at an Arkansas sports bar.

"My first fight was pretty out there too," says Kang.

Nowadays he fights with gloves, mouthguard, referees and rules, but back when the sport was unregulated, his first fight was a bare-knuckles affair in a warehouse in front of 500 people as the police pounded on the door.

"I was more worried about being arrested than beat up back then," he says.

Now mixed martial arts is a multi-billion dollar industry that has a long list of rules, highly trained fighters, and a fanbase that has long surpassed the stereotype of the knuckledragging redneck. Go to any bar showing tonight's pay-per-view and you'll likely find an audience of white collar professionals, women, teenagers, seniors, and even the occasional politician.

For Kang, the rise of MMA is bittersweet. It's nice that he can be paid well for what he does, but it's supremely annoying to him that his hometown of Vancouver still refuses to sanction the sport.

"The banning of MMA filled me with a great sense of disappointment," says Kang. "Outlawing my sport in my city is an insult to a guy who lives off the sport and has put so much time and passion into my training."

Despite the ban, locally, mixed martial arts is growing at a rapid pace, but fighters invariably have to leave town when they're ready to compete - or take their chances fighting on First Nations reserves.

"I think that the city needs to regulate MMA so that other young fighters can have a safe place to compete," says Kang who regularly trains in Florida and Montreal due to a lack of training partners locally.

And of course it would be nice to be able to fight in front of his friends and family.

"Sure," says Kang. "That's one of the great things about joining the UFC. Before, when I fought in Asia, my family would have to watch my fights on the internet or on tape. Now they can see me at home on TV."

Belcher has said his career ambition has always been to fight in the UFC, but Kang refused an offer to be featured on the first season of the UFC's highly popular reality show, The Ultimate Fighter, mostly because it would have interfered with his South Korean fight schedule.

"UFC was somewhere that I had always planned to fight, but there were other organizations in Japan and Korea back then that were considered a higher standard, so that's where I wanted to be," he said while preparing in Ireland. "It's different now, the UFC has pushed ahead and now it's where you want to be. I thought it was time for a little bit of a change within my career."

"And the offer was a bit more lucrative this time," he laughs.

If he had his druthers, Kang would be fighting UFC middleweight champion Anderson (The Spider) Silva today, but to get that shot, he has to rack up a few wins stateside.

"I want to be the champion eventually," says Kang, "so anybody who has the belt, I want to fight. To be the man you have to beat the man."

First stop: Alan Belcher.

While the man they call "The Talent" isn't in title contention after being beaten by Kendall Grove at UFC 69 and punched out by Canadian Jason Day at UFC 83, he's only a few solid wins from hitting the A-list, and he sees Kang as being a fighter at his weakest right now.

"I think that's a good time to fight some of the guys, their first time in the UFC," Belcher told reporters recently - which is why he specifically petitioned UFC matchmakers to put the fight together.

"I wanted him. I went out and got him," says Belcher.

But Kang shows no signs of ring-rust. In fact, he may well be better prepared for this fight than he was for any of his previous 44 contests, being as he's been in Montreal sparring with UFC welterweight champion, Georges St Pierre.

"I was already in shape from my last fight before this one was announced, so everything's just built from there. I'm in better shape, I'm peaking, I feel good to go," he says.

His record backs that claim. After a slow start to his career (he was 7-7 at one point), Kang has only lost three times in his last 26 contests.

So what can fans expect from the Belcher/Kang part of the UFC 93 pay-per-view?

Online: See Chris Parry's live-blog of the card at vancouversun.com from 7pm

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Hail to the Kang: B.C. mixed martial arts fighter set to debut in UFC

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